


falling is like this

by yennefers



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Season/Series 13, honey and vinegar, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-05-16 04:12:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19310380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yennefers/pseuds/yennefers
Summary: Ten years later, 2009 comes back to bite Mac in the ass.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alex (love u ♡) sent '11 / oh god, he's serious' for a prompt list abt fifty years ago. i swear that phrase shows up in this fic eventually!! until it does, cws for alcoholism, post-traumatic stress, and dennis being a bastard man.

The apartment’s quiet when Mac wakes up.

He’d barely been able to stand when he first got home. Collapsing on the couch was supposed to be a temporary thing - ten minutes max, and then he’d had plans involving a shower, hot food, and falling face first on his bed - but when he blinks awake, his thoughts muzzy and half-formed, the first thing he notices is the dark.

 _4:40am_ , according to his phone. He’s slept through the whole evening, then. And most of the night. And some of the morning.

“Shit,” Mac mutters.

He stares up at the ceiling for a second: skin itching, still half-asleep. Eventually, wincing at the ache in his thighs, he swings his legs off the couch and stumbles upright.

Mac tries his best to be stealthy - Dennis is in, most likely, since his keys are on the counter - he’s careful as he pads over to the kitchen, flicking on the cold tap and ducking his head under the faucet. He lets the water wash the worst of the sweat and glitter out his hair. His eyes still feel gritty, but that’s what he gets for passing out on a couch at 40.

There’s water dripping down his neck once he’s finished. It makes him wince. He walks over to the couch to grab the old hoodie draped over the back of it, drying off his face, and it’s so quiet that he thinks maybe he imagined it: the muffled sound coming from Dennis’ room.

Mac pauses in the dark.

It could’ve been a cat from outside. The creak of a door opening on the street below, or a car that needs new brake pads - the range rover had been making a similar sound the morning before when they’d driven to work together. Winwood had been playing over the radio and Mac had watched Dennis’ fingers tap along to the rhythm on the steering wheel, the car screeching in complaint at every stop light: _if they go too far, that's the way things are, though it may hurt some, take it as it comes._ )

It happens again, the same whimper.

The first thing he sees when he opens the door is Dennis, sprawled out on the sheets, lying on his back. Or... okay, he’s on his back at first, but as Mac watches his face flickers into a grimace, eyes still closed. His fingers clench and unclench spasmodically, the sheets held loosely in his grip, and he curls onto his side.

Mac frowns.

“Dennis?”

His face is still all twisted up. It’s making the gauntness of his cheeks stand out, and it’s making Mac want to reach for him and smooth away the wrinkles with his thumb. Dennis makes a sound: not a word, just another one of those tight, breathy noises, like he’s been hit or something, and Mac’s chest starts to smart.

“Dennis,” he repeats. Louder.

For a second, Dennis doesn’t move at all. Mac briefly entertains the idea of hauling ass back to the couch and pretending this weird fever-dream never happened - but then Dennis is staring at him, blinking awake and meeting his eyes in the dark.

Shit.

Mac swallows.

“You, uh,” he says. “You were dreaming, dude.”

Dennis watches him for a second longer, unmoving. Then:

“Time is it?” he mutters.

“Just gone five.”

Dennis runs a hand over his face. He shifts under the blankets. There’s another silence, and it doesn’t break when Dennis gets unsteadily to his feet, or when he brushes past Mac on his way to the kitchen. It just keeps stretching out between them like a pulled thread.

Dennis has never been that great at sleeping through the night. He was bad at it when they were kids and borderline insufferable in their twenties - he’d get so loud sometimes that Mac could hear him from across the apartment, the alarm clock glowing somewhere between midnight and 3 - and back then he used to push the sheets away and settle on Dennis’ lap without thinking about it too much, flicking the tip of his nose until he pulled himself out of whatever dream he was caught in. They’d stay up together afterwards, occasionally. Play a shitty board game from the stack under the bookcase or rip apart whatever movie was on TV.

“Get out my room,” Dennis’ voice says. It’s followed by the sound of a cupboard being opened and the crinkle of the instant coffee packet.  
  


* * *

 

The kitchen light is flickering. Mac watches it as he pushes himself up to sit on the countertop, tapping the heel of one foot absently on the cupboard door underneath.

“We should fix that.”

Dennis stirs his coffee, sat at the kitchen table. He doesn’t look up.

“Dude. You think it could blow a fuse? Like - you know that time the lights acted up at Paddy’s, and then we had to do all that shit to the fuse box -”

“I don’t know,” Dennis says. His voice is clipped. “And I don’t care.”

He’s looking down at the table like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. It stings for a reason Mac can’t place, which pisses him off, and then the anger makes it sting even more - within seconds he can feel a shitty feedback loop blooming under his skin, and suddenly it’s taking a lot of effort not to deck Dennis right in his stupid jaw.

“Great,” he mutters. “That’s great, Dennis.”

That, he realises, even as he’s talking, was the exact wrong thing to say - Dennis’ eyes jerk up to meet his, and he has that sharp look on his face that means he’s about to start being a dick, his lip curled derisively -

His expression freezes.

“You’ve got.” Dennis makes a stiff, unhelpful gesture with one hand. “On your shirt -”

Mac frowns. He starts brushing at his chest and his hand comes away shimmering under the light. He must’ve missed a spot of glitter.

“Oh,” he says. “Yeah. Forgot to shower.”

He can feel his cheeks flushing a little. Dennis watches him for a moment longer, expression inscrutable, and then he ducks his head and stares down at the table again.

“Whatever,” he mutters. It’s less venomous than it could’ve been.

Mac clears his throat. He slides off the counter and backs away, making a beeline for the safety of the bathroom. Dennis doesn’t look up as he goes. He can’t decide if that makes things better or worse.

The hot water isn’t as unpredictable as it used to be. The pressure’s better, too. Back in the _old_ -old apartment it used to cut out all the time, thanks to a cheap 80's reno job they never got round to fixing - which had been great for their water bill, ‘cause it made showering a nightmare - but now Mac finds himself losing an hour in here each time, easy. Longer on the days Dennis can’t keep his mouth shut.

He leans back against the shower wall and tilts his head forward, careful and slow, until the water is hitting the dull ache at the top of his spine. There’s a tightness in his throat that’s difficult to breathe around. He watches green glitter slide down to his feet and circle the drain.

Sometimes - not often, but sometimes - on nights like this, Mac wishes he’d stayed gone. Missing Dennis was easy. Having to think about how to act around him is hard, and he’s bad at it, and he doesn’t really see himself improving anytime soon. They don’t think about how to act around each other. That’s the whole point of a best friend, right? The two of you just _are_. If you do it right even your names end up inseparable. Mac-and-Dennis. You say it collectively or you don’t say it at all. They were good at it, too, until Dennis came back hating him without warning, and it’s like… it’s like when Indiana Jones went bad. It’s like watching the first movie and then having the rug ripped out from under you nineteen years later when Crystal Skull shows up in theatres. The music sounds right and Harrison Ford is still there, but the heart is different, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You just have to watch it happen.

This weird tension between them - the heaviness he keeps feeling whenever Dennis walks into a room - is reaching a breaking point. Their Crystal Skull moment is coming. Dennis will probably be the one who starts it all, and Mac sort of wants to walk out before he gets the chance. Just to make it easier to breathe.

There’s a sharp rap on the door. Mac rolls his eyes up to the ceiling.

“Yeah, all right,” he says. “Gimme five more minutes, dude.”

“I need to shave,” Dennis retorts. He really doesn’t - stubble doesn’t look half as bad on him as Dennis thinks - but Mac’s sick of arguing and it’s not like Dennis is gonna listen anyway. So.

He turns off the shower and grabs his towel. The door handle turns just as he finishes wrapping it around his waist: Dennis heads straight for the mirror without a word. Mac pushes past him and steps out into the cold hallway. His back stills hurts. Daylight has started to slink in under the blinds.  
  


* * *

 

The rest of the morning, in no uncertain terms, sucks ass.

It starts to rain and then it doesn’t stop. Dennis flits restlessly around the kitchen the whole time, sipping coffee and reading the back of granola bars without actually opening them - he gets snappy at Mac for leaving crumbs on the counter and Mac snaps back at him for using all the detergent. There’s the threat of a hangover hovering behind Mac’s eyes, throbbing quietly, like it’s trying to decide if a couple of double whiskeys is a good enough reason to pounce. In the end, they fall into an uneasy silence that lasts until Dennis says, shortly: “I’m leaving in five.”

“Can you make it ten?” Mac calls out, frowning as he surveys his bedroom. “‘Cause I can’t figure out where I put my -”

“Nope,” Dennis says. He pops the P like an asshole. For the second time that day, Mac really, _really_ wants to smack him in the jaw.

“Dude.”

“Five minutes.”

“Dennis -”

Something hits him in the back. Mac turns around, scowling, but he doesn’t manage to get the last word - the front door slams shut just as he catches sight of the leather jacket crumpled at his feet.

The ride over to the bar is painfully quiet. They drive in silence, except for the rain tapping on the windshield and Dennis’ muttered road rage. Mac’s skin is itching and he wants to put the radio on, just to fill the air with something, but he knows better than to ask.

A back office day, he decides. That’s what he needs. He’s gonna pass out under the desk for a few hours, and then he’ll find Dee so they can drink somewhere dry and Dennis-free, and then the day won’t be a complete washout.

Well. Hopefully.

He doesn’t wait for Dennis to pull up on the curb before jumping out. He doesn’t wait for him at the door, either. Nobody looks up when he walks in, which is pretty normal, all things considered, but Dee, Frank and Charlie are all huddled around the same tiny table, which isn’t.

Mac frowns.

“What’s going on?”

“Dude!” Charlie says. He’s got a weird, unnerving gleam in his eye. “ _Dude_. You’ve got to see this. Check this out.”

“It’s nine in the morning, Charlie,” Mac mutters. He steps closer though, curiosity winning out, and peers down at the tabletop.

It’s a leaflet. A flashy looking one, sure, but a leaflet all the same. There’s a logo on the front that’s oddly familiar. _Philadelphia Restaurant and Bar Association._ A paragraph about a contest that’s too long to focus on. Another paragraph, that’s also too long to focus on. And there, right at the bottom, in big bold text:  _$50,000._

“You’re kidding me,” Mac says.

“Competition for small business owners.” Frank sounds worryingly devious. “Exclusive. Invite only. Says here winner gets fifty thousand -”

“And stickers,” Charlie chimes in. “Unlimited _Best In Philly_ stickers.”

“So let’s enter, then,” Dennis says, appearing without warning by Mac’s shoulder.

Mac jumps. He clears his throat and walks over to Dee, pulling up a chair next to her and putting a metre or so of distance between him and Dennis - if Dennis notices, he doesn’t show it. Just settles in the other free seat and pulls the advert closer to him.

“Don’t get your hopes up, moron,” Dee warns. “This is where it gets complicated. Paddy’s is banned.”

The shock runs through Mac like a live wire.

“Wait, we’re _banned_ _?_ ”

“Why the hell are we banned?” Dennis snaps.

“I mean,” Charlie says, hesitantly. “I did… I did yell at those guys. Y’know. Couple of years ago. And I spat on them a little.”

“We were all spitting, Charlie,” Frank points out. He pats Charlie’s arm. “Don’t go blamin' yourself.”

Dennis is scowling.

“So - what is this, you spit on a few people and suddenly you’re banned? What are we even banned from?”

“Any and all competitive or recreational activities involving their dumb society, their dumb society’s sister societies, or any of their partners,” Dee says, flatly. She waves a piece of paper in the air. “They sent us an email.”

“Goddamnit.” Mac mutters. Then, with a brief spark of hope: “if they hate us so much, why’d they bother giving us a pamphlet?”

“Oh, they didn’t,” Charlie says. “I stole this one off the door of that gin bar.”

Mac’s mood deflates even further.

“Right.”

“Paddy’s is great,” Frank says, stubbornly. “This is a load of bullshit, I say we enter anyway.”

Dennis rolls his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter how great Paddy’s is. As long as they know we’re the owners, we’re -”

“What if they didn’t know?”

Mac, at this point, is familiar enough with Dee's dumb scheme-voice to know when he's hearing the precursor to it. 

“Dee," he says; half-groan, half-plea.

“Shut up,” she snaps, waving a bony hand at him. “Hear me out. Look, we could use a couple of characters. Drag Brian and Prudence out of retirement, act like we just bought the bar. Tell these assholes that we’re new blood.”

“All that Lefevre shit has been compromised,” Frank says, dismissively. “No way. We need a new angle.”

“The event’s tomorrow night, Frank! There’s not enough time to come up with a good -”

Dee trails off. Then, her gaze flicking over to Mac and settling on him:

“You.”

Mac frowns.

“Me?”

“You,” Dee repeats, pointing at him, then sliding her finger over to Dennis. “And you. What were those characters you guys came up with? Y’know, when I was doing the baby scheme -

Mac’s stomach drops without warning: free-falling down through his boots and towards the centre of the earth.

“No way,” he says, firmly. “That’s out.”

“Oh, come _on_ -”

“No, that’s - that was.” He swallows. His mouth has gone dry. “You don’t get it, Dee, that was a one time thing -”

“I’ll do it.”

Mac thinks he must’ve dreamed it, at first. That he misheard. He’d be ready to believe that he did, too: except Dennis is right there, sat across the table from him. And he’s _nodding_.

“What?”

Dennis rolls his eyes.

“Fifty thousand, Mac,” he drawls, stretching his arms out and folding them behind his head. He almost sounds like himself. “For one night? I think the pros outweigh the cons for fifty thousand. Don't know where the hell those jackets went, though.”

 _I've got them_ , Mac doesn’t say. This is probably a bad time to admit that. He’s still not sure if this conversation is real, anyway.

“Then it’s settled,” Frank says. Mac can practically hear a gavel come down as he speaks. “Mac and Dennis can be our guys on the inside, and the three of us -” he gestures to Dee and Charlie - “we can pull some strings from above. See if we can rig the competition. In and out operation, easy.”

“This won’t work,” Mac protests weakly - but even as he says it, he’s already thinking about it. Dennis is a lot of things and Mac doesn’t like most of them right now, but if there’s one part of him that hasn’t changed; that never will, most likely, ‘cause it’s too intrinsic, it’s that Dennis likes to put on a show. He’s _good_ at shit like this. He’s the best chance they have.

“It has to work,” Dee says, right on cue. “This is our only option.”

“What if Dennis went in alone?”

“A lone wolf looks like a creep, Mac,” Dennis points out. “Two lone wolves? In pastel shirts? That’s a married couple. Completely different threat level. Nobody will suspect a thing.”

He keeps talking. Mac doesn’t hear any of it. He looks down at his hands and thinks of all the ways this could go horribly, irreversibly wrong. He thinks about how Dennis looked the night before, staring blankly at the kitchen table like it was the only thing standing between him and whatever it was he’d been dreaming about - how he looks now, grinning a little like he used to - and despite it all, there’s something clawing its way out of his chest. It almost feels hopeful.

“So,” Dennis says. “Are you in?”  
  


* * *

 

Someone drags the graph paper out the back office. A plan is drawn up, then erased, then drawn up again; there are discussions about outfits, backstories, relationship status, but Mac barely listens to any of it. It’s like he’s caught in a hurricane. Their names are written at the top of the page in messy black sharpie: _Mac (Vic Vinegar)_ and _Dennis (Hugh Honey)_. He keeps finding himself staring at them without meaning to, and then glancing over at Dennis, also without meaning to - who isn’t looking at him at all, caught up in a fight with Frank that Mac’s having trouble following.

“Absolutely not,” Dennis is saying. “No. We’re sticking with the original ones, red washes me out.”

“Yellow washes you out, Dennis,” Frank advises. “Makes you look all jaundiced.”

“I am not jaundiced,” Dennis says, icily. “I have a delicate complexion.”

“Jaundiced,” Frank mutters.

“All right!” Dee flings out an arm to stop Dennis from lunging across the table. “Jesus Christ. Okay. Let’s try to stay on topic here, we have a shitton of work to do.”

Dennis is still scowling. His fingers twitch restlessly around the neck of his beer bottle. Mac swallows.

“I think you look good in yellow, dude,” he offers. He was aiming for casual but he can already tell that he missed it by a mile, because everyone’s giving him that _look_ \- annoyed, exasperated, like they’ve heard it a hundred times before - and Mac shrinks back in his seat, looking down at his lap. His cheeks are burning.

“Okay,” Charlie says, way too loud. “So… so, there are three ways in. Maybe four, but I’m guessing you guys won’t wanna do the whole sewer thing -”

“No,” Dennis says, flatly.

“Right,” says Charlie. He clears his throat. “Uh. Exactly.”

Silence settles over them. Mac shifts in his seat - his skin itching, struggling against the urge to fidget.

“Whatever,” he mutters. He runs a hand through his hair. “Look, who cares how we get in, I’m tired as shit. Let’s figure it out tomorrow.”

Dee scoffs.

“You want to wing it?” she retorts. “The one genuinely useful thing you’ve done in months, and you want to wing it?”

“Yeah, Dee, I guess so,” Mac snaps, and it feels all wrong. It’s wrong not sitting next to Dennis. It’s wrong that he’s fighting with Dee; it’s wrong that he _doesn’t_ want to fight with Dee, and that talking to Charlie doesn’t even feel like an option - the loneliness smacks into him without warning, hitting low in his gut and spreading itself out.

This keeps happening. He doesn’t know why, it just does: they find something like their old rhythm and then they lose it again. It’s like a clock that can never stay in time. A punchline coming a beat too fast. Every so often they’ll get a brilliant, momentary flash of something familiar, where they’re all on the same page - or they’re not, but it’s fun either way - and then it falls apart, and they end up back here. Right where they started.

Dee skulks behind the bar, flipping the cap off a beer and taking a long swig. Mac glances up from his lap to see Frank dozing off and Charlie seemingly absorbed by the graph pad, tracing patterns on it with his fingers. Dennis is staring at him with an unreadable expression on his face, and when their eyes meet, that’s it. It’s too much.

“See you later,” Mac mutters. He slides off his stool and shoves his hands in the pockets of his jacket. Nobody says anything as he walks over to the door. It slams shut behind him, too loud in the silence, and then he’s alone. Out in the drizzle and under the overcast sky. Half of him is wildly hoping that Dennis is gonna follow him and the other half knows that he won’t - he waits awkwardly for a few seconds anyway, glancing back at the door and bouncing on the balls of his feet. Just in case.

In the end, he stays two minutes. Nearly three. Then the rain picks up without warning, falling faster and in earnest, and Mac ends up walking to the gym just to get somewhere dry - it takes him half as long as usual, since he runs the last block. By the time he skids into the lobby, panting, it feels like his whole body has been soaked a hundred times over.

“Caught in the rain, huh?”

The guy behind the desk looks familiar. Julian, Justin, something J-related - he’s okay, but he always tries to talk, and one time he wrote a bunch of numbers on the back of Mac’s receipt. Mac’s been friends with Charlie long enough that weird shit doesn’t really phase him anymore, but still. Weird.

“I guess,” Mac mutters. He digs his membership card out his pocket and shoves it across the counter - desk guy says anything else, but he’s not paying enough attention to hear it. The world around him has sort of blurred out. He goes downstairs to the locker room and changes quickly, and then, finally, he heads over to the pool.

It’s not quite as good as passing out in the back office. It’s definitely not as good as being drunk. It’s _something_ , though: Mac’s spent hours here before, staying in the water until his shoulders were numb. He didn’t have a choice at one point - Katiya got him into it when they were working on lifts.

(“If you drop me,” she’d told him, her dark eyes staring at Mac dead-on, “then the whole performance breaks. Got it?”

“Uh -”

“Good,” Katiya had said, briskly. “We’ll start with laps.”)

The pool’s empty apart from him. He ends up floating on his back after ten minutes or so, staring up at the dingy vaulted ceiling. The sound the water makes echoes weirdly into empty space. Like it would in a cave, if this were a movie - which is a fun train of thought until Mac stumbles onto Indiana Jones again, and then, inevitably, onto Dennis.

It’s not like he hasn’t thought about it before. When he first came back, Mac thought about it so much that it turned into a daydream: the two of them working on a scheme together like they used to. They’d pull it off just in time and everything about them would settle again, snapping back into place like it’d never changed at all - but now it’s happening for real, and he’s never dreaded anything more in his life. It feels like the easiest way to make everything worse; like putting your finger in the barrel of a loaded gun. Except -

They’d bought the outfits together the first time around. Dennis had slipped in the changing room with him, ignoring the store clerk’s glare, carrying a metric fuckton of white shirts in tow. He’d considered the fit of each one with laser-like focus, his hands on Mac’s chest, smoothing the fabric down, and afterwards he’d given Mac this smile - easy and small, like it was something just between them - and Mac’s pretty sure that was it, for him.

He can’t pinpoint the moment when they went off track. Dennis willingly being alone with him like that is pretty much unthinkable now; but the point Mac’s trying to make is, despite all the shit he talks, Dennis said yes first. He doesn’t know what that means, if it means anything at all. But it happened.

His arms are getting stiff. Mac winces, slipping back onto his front and crossing the water to the steps - he pulls himself out and up, and then he pads barefoot back towards the changing rooms.

By the time he steps outside again, the weather’s apparently decided to take pity: his walk home is dry, and it’s not until he’s safe in the apartment building that he hears the first telltale drops of rain tapping on the roof. The range rover is parked up outside - which is weird, since they were both technically supposed to at the bar stay ‘til close - and when he walks into the living room the first thing is sees is Dennis, sat on the couch and flicking through the competition leaflet. One of his legs is bouncing a little.

 _He’s nervous, too,_ Mac thinks. It’s comforting, in an odd sort of way.

“Hey.”

Dennis glances up at him. He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes travel slowly from Mac’s damp, towel-mussed hair down to his grubby combat boots - where they linger, for some reason.

“What?” Mac says, defensively. He crosses his arms.

“Are you going to wear those tomorrow?”

It comes out of the blue. Mac freezes, caught off-guard.

“I guess,” he says. “Yeah.”

Dennis rolls his eyes.

“Mac, they’ll clock us the second we walk in. Pick some others.”

“I don’t have any other shoes, bro,” Mac says, walking over to the refrigerator and taking a swig of milk out the carton - it gets on Dennis‘ nerves, always does, but whatever. He’s getting on Mac’s nerves right now anyway.

“You’re a forty year old man with one pair of shoes?”

Mac groans.

“Why does it _matter_ -”

“Mac, we need to pull this off,” Dennis says, exasperated. He gets up off the couch and walks closer. “Look, I’m not exactly happy about it either -”

Anger flares up painfully in Mac’s chest. He whirls around to face Dennis again, scowling.

“Then why’d you even agree to it?”

“Because it’s one night,” Dennis snaps, slamming his hand on the countertop. “It’s _one night._ For fifty grand. So just wear the goddamn shoes and we’ll get this over with.”

There’s a muscle jumping in his jaw. It’s making his face look even sharper than usual: like the shadows in the corners of the kitchen could swallow him whole if he stayed here too long. Mac still wants to touch him, even though he’s angry. He doesn’t know why.

“It’s a one time thing,” Dennis says. He scrubs a hand over his face. “And then we can, you know. Keep going our separate ways. Whatever.”

Mac’s chest spikes cold. Like someone nicked it with a pin.

“Right,” he mutters. “Yeah.”

Dennis watches him steadily for a second. If he sees anything he deems suspicious, he doesn’t show it.

“Good,” he says, suddenly business-like. “Come sit down.”

 _Quit telling me what to do,_ Mac wants to say - but he’s tired of fighting, so he stays quiet as they settle on opposite sides of the couch. Dennis picks a notepad off the coffee table and flicks through to the most recent page. From the angle he’s sitting at Mac can see the notes he’s been pouring over. Some of them are in Dennis’ handwriting, some of them are in Dee’s, and they’re collected under three subheadings: _outfits, backstory, behaviours._

“So, point one,” Dennis says. “From the research I’ve done, the event is business-casual. Those jackets would’ve been perfect, but since they’re not -”

“I have them,” Mac blurts out. Dennis goes still.

“You have them,” he echoes. His voice is carefully neutral.

“I...” Mac swallows. “Yeah. I kept - in case we needed them. Again.”

Dennis still hasn’t moved.

“So, for the backstory,” Mac continues - ploughing forward unsteadily, refusing to let another awkward silence take hold - “I was thinking, like Dee said, ‘cause we’re in real estate, we can say we just bought the bar.”

“Yeah,” Dennis says. He sounds kind of dazed. He must be listening, though, ‘cause he makes a note on the paper in front of him. “Yeah. Makes sense.”

“And I guess we can use the...” Mac runs a hand through his damp hair. “You know. The same story we used before. If they ask about us, I mean.”

“Partners in real estate, partners in life,” Dennis says, dryly. Mac laughs, even though it isn’t that funny, and then looks down at his knees, willing his heartbeat to stay slow. When he looks up again he can feel Dennis’ eyes on him.

“So, uh. What's behaviours mean?”

Dennis is the one who looks away, this time: his gaze darting to the pen he’s fiddling with. His cheeks look oddly flushed.

“We can sort that out tomorrow,” he mutters. “Let’s… let’s take this slow.”

There’s a chance, Mac’s starting to realise - not huge, but not hopeless - that they might be able to pull this off. If they can stay on the same page for long enough, and if they can do it without killing each other. If they can do that for one night.

“Sure,” Mac says, softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://macfoundhispride.tumblr.com/)x


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cws for alcoholism and dennis being a bastard man.

It was stupid of him to think they could get through this without fighting. It was really fucking dumb.

There’s a tonne of people milling around in the hotel lobby, which apparently hasn’t been renovated since 1979. They’re all dressed like they have big houses and pool club memberships, and like they’d avoid Paddy’s like the plague. His mustard jacket is digging in under his arms. The matching tie is starting to make his neck itch.

“Stop fidgeting.”

“It’s hot as shit in here,” Mac mutters, glancing around in vain for a window to stand in front of. One of Dennis’ feet makes swift, unmerciful contact with his ankle.

“Mac,” he says. Mac can’t see him, but he’d bet fifty bucks his teeth are gritted. “Stop it.”

“What are we even waiting for? Shouldn’t be we talking to -”

“No,” Dennis snaps, “we’re waiting for _them_ to come to _us_. Otherwise it’s tacky.”

It’s the same kind of irritation he’s been throwing Mac’s way all day. The exasperated, _god, you’re an embarrassment, you’re useless, I have to do everything myself,_ type irritation - like Mac is an idiot and Dennis is the superior here, running the whole show from on high. He’s waiting for Dennis to snap at him for breathing.

“I was just asking,” Mac says, quietly.

“Well, don’t.” Dennis’ voice is short. He’s not even focused on Mac now, scanning the crowd like he has any idea what he’s looking for. “Think, for once in your life. I know that’s hard for you.”

Being angry at Dennis, in Mac’s experience, feels a lot like heartburn. It’s an ache that clogs him up on the inside and festers there. The only way out is to go Godzilla on something and smash it right down to dust: a punching bag, or some old crockery, or Dennis’ face. All three, maybe.

He shouldn’t have agreed to this. To be fair, he’s done a lot of things he shouldn’t have agreed to. Selling for his dad. Riding his bike down that hill in 9th grade. Moving in with Dennis in the first place. The list keeps building up and Mac keeps saying yes; it’s like there’s a honing signal in him that demands he does dumb shit. Or - okay. There used to be.

It takes a lot out of you. Building the world back up when the bottom drops out of it. It takes a lot of time, and effort, and it sucks pretty much 24/7, but Mac had gone through all that and come out the other side, and lately he’s been doing a pretty good job of keeping his shit together. Unsteadiness is a weird thing to feel. It’s familiar, but not in a good way. Like the smell of a doctor’s office.

“Mac,” Dennis snaps. “Mac - Jesus Christ, are you even listening?”

Mac’s skin prickles.

“What is your _problem_ , dude -” he starts, turning to face Dennis so he can round on him properly - and then he stops, because Dennis has snatched up the hand closest to him, and he’s... holding it. 

Dennis is holding his hand. And before Mac has time to think about it, or address it, or say anything at all - 

“I don’t think we’ve met,” some rich dick in a suit is saying.

Dennis uses his toothiest, fakest grin.

“Hugh Honey,” he says. His voice is smooth like oil. “This is my partner, Vic Vinegar.”

“And you own…?”

“Paddy’s Pub,” Mac says, without thinking. He just about manages to hide his wince when Dennis stands on his foot.

The stranger goes very pale.

“We just bought it,” Dennis clarifies. “We’re new in town. Bought it off the old owners.”

“New owners,” the rich guy says, slowly. He sounds relieved. “Well. It’s nice to know it’s under different management.”

“Oh, we’re very excited to get started,” Dennis says. “Aren’t we, hon?”

He squeezes Mac’s hand tight like a warning. _Don’t fuck this up._

“Yeah,” Mac says, faintly. He clears his throat. “Uh. Of course.”

“I never thought the old crowd would give it up, I have to say.” The stranger’s lip curls a little. “They were... eclectic.”

“They died,” Mac blurts out.

He can physically feel Dennis’ body stiffen.

“Excuse me?”

“What Vic here is trying to say,” Dennis amends - he wraps an arm around Mac’s shoulders, sending something electric and involuntary racing down Mac’s spine - “Is that there was an… unfortunate accident. Or so we heard.”

“Motorcycle stunt,” Mac provides.

“Right,” Dennis agrees. “Yes.”

“It was badass,” Mac adds. “You know. Big ramps, ring of fire type of thing -”

“The point is,” Dennis says, loudly, “we bought the building after the… untimely deaths. Of the previous owners. And we intend to do a full restoration. Really bring it up to its true potential.”

The stranger smiles at that: thin lipped, sure, but it looks genuine. The knot of ice in Mac’s chest starts to loosen.

“I’m sure the committee will be very interested in hearing from you,” he says. “Sounds like a promising venture.”

“Oh, it is,” Dennis agrees. “It really is. Nice talking to you.”

He stays in the role for a moment longer after the stranger leaves, his easy smile frozen in place. Once they’re safely out of earshot his arm tightens around Mac’s shoulders - he steers them briskly over to the bathroom, slamming the lock into place.

Mac winces.

“Okay,” he starts, lifting his hands in surrender. “Okay, so I panicked -”

“Bike stunts?” Dennis hisses. “That’s the best you could come up with?”

“I didn't want him to think we were pussies, Dennis,” Mac protests. Dennis makes a tight, frustrated sound. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Fine,” he snaps. “Whatever, new plan. I do all the talking, you just stand there and look good. That shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

He says it like it’s nothing. Which it is, Mac reminds himself. It is nothing.

“I,” he says. “Yeah. That works.”

“Good.” Dennis says shortly. Then: “Fix your tie. You look like an idiot.”

The sharp aching in Mac’s chest boils over: filling his throat before spreading down to his hands. It’s making his eyes itch. He shoves past Dennis to reach the shitty mirror over the sink and Dennis moves away from him automatically - leaning back against the tiled wall to increase the distance. The bathroom feels too big. It feels too small.  
  


* * *

 

If this is God’s way of punishing him for something, Mac decides, shifting from foot to foot at Dennis’ side, he wishes she’d just tell him what he did wrong already. 

The heat is stifling; the conversations endless. Not having to talk is a small mercy. Dennis navigates every bullshit encounter with annoying ease: he’s in his element, waxing poetic about shit like demographics and redesigns, and the less Mac has to say the more he stops paying attention at all. He’s drifting in and out of awareness like a ghost in a crowded room. Dozing off entirely is starting to sound like a good option when he feels it, hurtling back into his body with a jolt: Dennis’ hand sliding into his.

“Oh, my husband’s the same,” the woman in front of them is saying, nodding her head. “He hates these things. I couldn’t get him to come if I tried.”

“Well, Vic’s always been more of a doer than a talker,” Dennis tells her - and he shoots a glance at Mac then, perfectly timed, smiling tightly.

“How long have you two been together?”

“Ten years this year,” Dennis says. Mac frowns.

“We met in high school, though,” he points out. “So it’s more like thirty if you think about it.”

It takes a minute for his head to catch up with his mouth: when it does, the dread smacks into him all at once. They’re not Mac-and-Dennis in this room, and even if they were, they’ve never been Mac-and-Dennis like that - Mac winces, waiting for Dennis’ fancy dress shoe to smack him in the ankle again -

“High school sweethearts,” the woman says. She’s beaming, for some reason. “And you’re business partners, too. That’s dedication.”

“We work well together,” Dennis agrees, his voice nauseatingly sweet. His thumb’s started tracing patterns on the back of Mac’s hand. His fingers are softer than Mac thought they’d be, actually. It must be that stuff he keeps in the bathroom, the one with the peaches on the bottle - moisturiser is a bizarre concept, in Mac’s opinion, let alone different moisturisers for different body parts - but Dennis puts it on every morning, and his hands are unfairly, undeniably soft. Maybe they smell like peaches.

Dennis steps on his foot. Mac blinks, his train of thought slipping out of reach -

“You know what? I’ll put in a good word for you boys.”

“Oh, would you?” Dennis is saying. “That’s very kind. That’s so kind of you. We really appreciate it. Don’t we, sweetheart?”

Mac’s heart seizes up in his throat.

“Yes,” he manages. “Yeah. That’s… good.”

“That’s very kind,” Dennis repeats - and Mac knows him well enough to hear the excitement hiding underneath the show he’s putting on. When Dennis glances over at him once the woman’s turned her back, Mac sees it in the flesh: he’s grinning for real this time, giddy and wide, his eyes crinkled at the edges.

“Did you hear that?” Dennis whispers. “Dude, did you _hear_ that?”

Mac swallows. Looking at Dennis is starting to feel blinding, so he stops doing it.

“Yeah, I heard it.”

“Goddamn,” Dennis mutters. He shakes his head. “Nice job on the high school thing, by the way. Chicks love shit like that.”

Mac’s throat feels very dry. He resists the urge to clear it as he slowly extricates his hand out of Dennis’ grip.

“Can we go?”

He’s not expecting a yes. If anything, he’s expecting scorn; for Dennis to snap back at him like a rubber band. Dennis doesn’t answer right away, which makes things worse. He’s just watching Mac’s face, his expression unreadable.

“Irene said they’ll call tomorrow night,” he says, eventually. “Give us the results. Don’t see any point in staying around now we’ve made our good impression.”

Mac wrinkles his nose.

“Who the fuck is Irene?”

“The woman,” Dennis says. He’s talking like Mac just said something really dumb. “I - the woman we were just talking to, you were there the whole - Jesus, have you been paying attention at all?”

“Uh,” Mac says. “Not really.”

Dennis stares at him in disbelief. Mac braces for the irritation to make landfall - and then Dennis laughs, shaking his head, and one of his hands lands on the shoulder of Mac’s yellow jacket and slides down to his elbow.

“Jesus, man,” Dennis repeats. He’s still grinning. Despite it all, Mac can feel the corners of his mouth quirk up.

“We still pulled it off,” he points out. “Come on. You can’t be that harsh.”

“I pulled it off,” Dennis says, as they start walking over to the fire exit. “You stood there with your mouth open like a moron.”

“That’s what you told me to do!”

“Relax,” Dennis says. He’s rolling his eyes, probably. That’s the voice he usually uses when he rolls his eyes.

“I helped too, dude,” Mac insists. If he sounds a little petulant, it’s only because he’s tired.

“You helped a little,” Dennis allows. They’re out in the cool of the night now, the warmth and noise of the party muffled behind them. Gravel crunches under Mac’s shoes like snow. The hotel parking lot is illuminated by a white-glowing streetlight, and as Dennis settles into the driver’s seat a beam of it catches him on the chin, making his face look soft and strange. The urge to touch him surges up in Mac so strongly that he can barely breathe.

“You wanna get dinner?” Dennis says.  
  


* * *

 

They have the whole city to choose from. Somehow, for reasons Mac can’t quite pin down, they end up at the 24-hour pizza place a few blocks from the apartment.

They used to come here a lot, back when they first moved in. The prices are cheap and the location’s convenient - the quality of the food itself varies wildly, but it tastes good after a few beers, which is the important thing. Mac still knows the phone number by heart. He can’t remember the last time he used it, though, much less the last time they actually _ate_ here, sat across from each other at one of the rickety formica tables by the window.

“Order what you want,” Dennis says, shoving a menu across the table. “Frank’s paying, I’ve got his card.”

“You gonna get anything?” Mac asks. He winces at split second later when he realises how that sounded out loud, but Dennis, to his credit, reacts like he hadn’t said a word - just settles back in his seat, loosening his tie.

Mac does order what he wants in the end, if only because his mom didn’t raise someone who’d ever turn down free food. He gets a shake, too, since it’s not like he’s the one footing the bill. Dennis rolls his eyes but doesn’t say a word, so Mac’s pretty sure he’s in the clear on that front.

“So,” Dennis announces, once their surly teenage waiter has dropped off Mac’s food. “It’s safe to say they bought it.”

Mac licks whipped cream off his lips.

“You think we’re gonna win?”

“Oh, it’s in the bag,” Dennis says, waving a dismissive hand. He reaches out and plucks one of Mac’s dough sticks out of their plastic basket. “You kidding me? We were the best people there. Easily. We blew the rest of those assholes out the water.”

“There were a lot of people to beat, bro,” Mac points out. Dennis rolls his eyes.

“Yes,” he says. “And most of them were terrible. That’s my point.”

His hair is starting to curl. Dennis spent hours fussing over it in the bathroom before they left, but whatever he did has clearly worn off. Heat and humidity, probably. He’s gonna pitch a fit when he finds out. Part of Mac wants to draw his attention to it and the other part’s happy just like this, watching Dennis slouch comfortably in his seat and steal food off Mac’s plate like an asshole.

Dennis frowns.

“What are you smiling about?”

Mac just shrugs. Dennis gets this look on his face like he’s about to push for an answer - and then, right on cue, he glances at the window and does a double take.

“Shit,” he mutters, smoothing down his hair with careful fingers. Mac swallows a laugh, not wanting to push his luck, and Dennis narrows his eyes.

“Stop it.”

“Didn’t say anything, dude,” Mac points out. He bites the end off a dough stick of his own and chews while they stare each other down for a second; then two, then three.

“You are the worst husband,” Dennis says.

It takes half the milkshake to calm Mac’s coughing fit into something manageable. Dennis laughs the whole time, because of course he does, and when Mac glowers at him he laughs even harder.

“You’re worse,” Mac says. He barely manages to get the words out without his voice shaking. “You - you hogged every conversation, bro, I never got to say anything.”

“Because we agreed that you shouldn’t,” Dennis points out. “And I’m the breadwinner, anyway. I’m the one who should be saying things.”

“Whatever,” Mac mutters. He takes another long sip of his milkshake, trying to get rid of the dryness in his mouth. His heartbeat refuses to settle down.

How did he used to live like this? Listening to Dennis talk on a daily basis, having Dennis’ hands on him pretty much every day - how could anyone survive that without having a coronary? Mac hadn’t really noticed them growing apart until Dennis ripped himself out of the equation for good; but this, too, had been shrouded away under something heavy. Just how closely they used to touch, and how often. The things Dennis used to say.

Dennis’ eyes have strayed to the window. He picks a napkin out of the dispenser at the edge of the table and delicately wipes his fingers clean, working on each of his nails individually.

The problem, Mac thinks, watching him, is that he wants to be Dennis’ friend. And doesn’t know how.

It’s not about getting over him completely. Mac’s not sure that’s even possible - loving Dennis feels like it’s sewn into him, at this point - but maybe it’s time to ditch the expectancy. He’s spent years waiting for a moment that’s clearly never going to come. Dennis doesn’t want him. It’s okay. It’s not okay, really, but it’s all right, because he never said Mac had to stop feeling things altogether. Just that he couldn’t give anything back. Mac would rather settle for having a little of him than not having him at all. He isn’t starting from scratch, anyway - they were friends before all this, they can be like that again.

No expectations. He’s just gonna keep loving Dennis. In an easy, casual sort of way. To help build their friendship back up. 

Yeah. That works.

The restaurant has gone silent. For the first time in a long time, it’s a silence Mac doesn’t want to break. Dennis takes another dough stick. Mac fishes the soggy, sad looking cherry out the bottom of his glass and eats it whole, tying the stem in a knot. Dennis looks vaguely disgusted from start to finish, and when Mac flicks it at him he shoots him a withering glare that would be more intimidating if their ankles weren’t knocking together under the cramped table.

“What the hell does it take to get a cheque in this place?” Dennis mutters eventually, craning his neck to peer around the room. Mac rolls his eyes.

“Give it five minutes, dude.”

“I will not give it five minutes,” Dennis says. “I don’t want to give it any minutes, I should be able to leave when I’m goddamn good and ready to leave, not - y’know, wait for some asshole to give me the time of day -”

“We leave people hanging at the bar all the time,” Mac points out.

“That’s different,” Dennis says, insistently. “That’s - we’re a leisure establishment. People are supposed to take their time.”

“Plus we have security,” Mac admits. Dennis nods, satisfied.

“Someone tries to dine and dash at Paddy’s, there’s no way. We nip that in the bud. Whereas here -”

“You could just walk out,” Mac agrees. “Yeah, okay. I’m seeing your point.”

“Not that we would walk out,” Dennis adds. “Just, y’know. We _could_.”

“We could walk out,” Mac says.

“Right,” Dennis says.

“But we won’t.”

“Exactly.”

Mac glances around the empty room again. When he looks back, Dennis meets his eyes, eyebrows raised. His gaze flicks from Mac to the parking lot outside the window.

It turns out there are, in fact, still staff around. They make that discovery when they get chased out onto the road, Dennis’ foot firmly on the gas. 

“Wrong gear, dude,” Mac points out, his head poking out the window as he looks behind them for pursuers.

“Don’t backseat drive,” Dennis snaps. “I hate it when you backseat drive, put your seatbelt on -”

“I’m not backseat driving.” Mac pulls the front half of his body back into the car, scowling at Dennis. “I’m front seat driving.”

“Seatbelt,” Dennis repeats. He tugs the gear stick around and the Range Rover lurches forward, the headlight beams shaking wildly, and they’re gone.

It takes them ten minutes or so to get back to the apartment. Another five to drag themselves up the stairs, once it becomes apparent that the elevator has decided to take some time off. Mac can feel exhaustion seeping into his body as he shrugs his blazer off and tosses it onto the couch. His shoulders ache as he rolls them (goddamn, that thing was tight) and when he turns around, he sees Dennis stood over by the bookcase, looking studiously down at the floor.

“You gonna...?” Mac says. He flicks his eyes over to Dennis’ room. Dennis clears his throat.

“Might stay up.” His voice sounds the way it usually does when he’s half-asleep, despite the words coming out his mouth. “Catch something on TV.”

The dark circles under Dennis’ eyes are starting to peek through his concealer. Looking at them is making Mac remember the sounds he’d heard from his room the night before - but friends don’t ask about that kind of stuff. And he really, really wants to be Dennis’ friend.

Mac exhales.

“Cool,” he says. “Just… turn the light off when you’re done.”

Dennis rolls his eyes.

”No shit.”

“Cool,” Mac repeats. Then, quietly: “Night, Dennis.”

“Go to bed,” Dennis mutters. He doesn’t sound angry, though. Just tired.  
  


* * *

 

Mac wakes up the same way he has every morning for the past ten months: at 6am on the dot, with early dawn sunlight glaring in his eyes.

He’s not kept up with the washboard abs and the workout routine, but for some reason his body refuses to let go of this: the instinct to be out of bed by six, at the studio by six thirty, and suffering through cardio warm ups with Katiya by seven. Something in his knee cracks ominously as he sits up and Mac winces, reaching down to rub it under the sheets - maybe he should go back to the studio. Jesus.

He lays back down again, grabbing the nearest pillow so he can curl his arms around it. He’s almost managed to coax himself into dozing when he hears a low, muffled sound from the other room. Voices, maybe. At least two.

Mac frowns.

Who the hell is calling this early? Who the hell is calling Dennis, of all people, this early? The only suspects he can think of should already know that getting a full sentence out of him before 9 is a lost cause. Maybe there’s something going down at the bar. Maybe something already _has_ gone down at the bar, and him and Dennis are gonna have to swoop in and do damage control. 

“Hey,“ Mac says, stumbling out into the living room, rubbing his eyes. “What’s -”

He trails off.

There is no phone call. There’s just Dennis: curled on the couch, unmoving, the TV playing quietly. The overhead light is still on.

It feels like he’s looking at something he’s not supposed to see. Dennis seems weirdly small from this angle. Maybe that’s the problem. Mac can’t see his face since it’s buried in the couch cushions, but he can see the top of his head, and he can see Dennis’ fingers twitching restlessly in sleep, and when he steps forward and flicks off the TV he sees Dennis fidget, stiffening a little. He curls in on himself even further like one of those paper fortune tellers.

He doesn’t have a blanket, Mac realises. Usually, when one of them ends up on the couch like this, they use the ugly knitted throw they stole from Dee’s place, but apparently Dennis fell asleep before grabbing it off the coffee table. It’s started to get cool at night.

Maybe Dennis will wake up in a second, though. He won’t need it if he does.

Mac kills two minutes making coffee, and another three leaning back against the counter with the mug in his hands, trying and failing to keep his eyes off the couch. Finally, once the five minute mark has been and gone, he breathes out. He walks back over to the coffee table and sits on the edge - unfolds the fuck-ugly throw, brushing off the lint, before laying it carefully over Dennis’ shoulders, tucking it around the tight curled shape of his body.

For a second, he thinks Dennis might jolt awake. He can’t really tell if he’s hoping for it or dreading it - it doesn’t matter either way, because he doesn’t. He just shifts a little, moving his head to rest it on his arm. Mac sees his face for the first time that day: the red creases on his cheeks from the couch, his lips chapped and half parted. His hair is a mess. There’s a smudge of something smeared over one cheekbone - it looks like makeup gunk, to Mac’s professional eye. Without thinking he leans forward and swipes his thumb over it gently, wiping his fingers on the hem of his shirt.

He gets wrapped up in his own head, sometimes, thinking about that year. The one none of them seem able to look at directly. _Where were you? Where did you stay?_ And underneath that, tied up in an angry, fragile knot: _What happened to you?_

Somewhere out there is a place where Dennis lived for months - alone, or maybe not, but definitely without Mac. He lived there long enough that he must still be able to remember how it looked. Mac could put the past twenty years of their lives on a chart, and they’d follow a trajectory so similar you probably wouldn’t notice you were looking at two separate people at all. Right up until the signal on Dennis’ side went dark. 

What was it like, wherever Dennis was? Neat or chaotic? Big or small? If he thinks about it too long he gets furious at all the faceless people Dennis must’ve spoken to, however briefly - the store clerks and the café baristas, the people who walked past him on the street without even knowing. They didn’t notice him, they didn’t want him, but they got to see him anyway: and Mac was left here, holding half of something in his hands, tired of clinging to it but too scared to put it down.

“Hey,” Dennis says.

Mac jumps. He flinches back, panic rising up in his throat -

“What’s the time?” Dennis mutters, struggling upright, the throw still tucked around his shoulders.

“It’s, uh,” Mac says. “Six. Six-ish.”

“Mm,” Dennis says. He yawns; a long, heavy kind of yawn, his head tilted up the ceiling, and then he glances back at Mac, blinking owlishly. He looks like he’s still half-asleep.

“I was gonna make some coffee.”

He wasn’t. He figures it’s a decent peace offering anyway. Dennis shrugs, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

“Yeah, I’ll take some,” he murmurs.

So he’s not mad. That’s something. Maybe he didn’t notice Mac was sitting there at all.

They fall into an easy silence. Mac makes up another pot of coffee, pouring the lukewarm dregs of his first cup down the sink, and he hears Dennis get to his feet behind him, stretching and cursing under his breath. His back must be killing him. It’s what he gets for sleeping on the couch - especially when there was a bed ten feet away, with a stupidly expensive comforter and stupidly expensive sheets. That’s the part Mac doesn’t get.

Friends don’t ask, he reminds himself. There’s a prickling feeling under his skin. He ignores it.  
  


* * *

 

“So when are they calling?”

“I told you,” Dennis says. His beer sloshes around in the bottle as he makes a sharp, irritated gesture with one hand. “They said they’d let us know by the evening.”

“Well the animal shelter closes at 5, Dennis, so I need the -”

“Use your cell, Dee, my god.”

“They blocked her cell,” Charlie calls out. “And mine. And Frank’s, ‘cause we used Frank’s yesterday.”

Dennis sighs.

“Why are you guys trying the dog thing again, anyway?”

“Junkyard dog, dude!” says Charlie. He smacks one hand down on the pool table, wide eyed. “Junkyard dog! For protection and shit.”

“I’m the sheriff,” Mac points out, turning around on his stool to face Charlie. “I should get a say on who my deputies are. And it’s not like I even need deputies.”

Dee snorts.

“You’re hot-ripped. Not tough-ripped. Don’t kid yourself, Mac, it’s just sad.”

“Yeah, I am,” Mac says, frowning, because… he is. “I am too tough-ripped.”

“Glamour muscles,” Dee drawls.

“Glamour muscles,” Dennis agrees, leaning back against the wall as he nods. “He’s all bis and tris. Always has been.”

It would’ve hurt a lot more a few days ago. It still hurts a little now, but Mac forgets about it when Dennis soothes the bite by sliding a beer across the counter to him, their fingertips brushing as the bottle changes hands.

“You’ll see,” Mac mutters. “Next time there’s some asshole drunk in here, you’re on your own.”

“No, we won’t be, dickweed,” Dee says, crisply. “That’s what the dog is for.”

The phone rings.

Dee and Dennis scramble forward as one: Dee has the upper hand initially, her long limbs knocking into the counter as she makes a dive for the receiver, but Dennis elbows her back and gets there just in time.

“Yes,” he says hurriedly, snatching the phone out of Dee’s reach. “Yeah, this is Hugh Honey.”

He goes silent.

“Okay,” he says, and oh, shit, Mac knows that voice. It only comes out when Dennis is very surprised, or very angry, or very scared. “No, that’s... that won’t be a problem at all. Thank you.”

Another pause.

“Absolutely.” Dennis clears his throat. “Great. Yeah, you too.”

“So?” Dee says, leaning forward and clicking her fingers at him. “What’s the verdict?”

“We... ” Dennis rubs the bridge of his nose. He’s frowning. “We’re one of the finalists.”

Mac’s chest soars.

“We won?”

“No,” Dennis snaps. _“One of_ , genius. They want to meet up with us again. Next Friday.”

“I thought this was a one night thing,” Charlie says, doubtfully. Mac agrees with him, even if he doesn’t say it out loud.

“It’s fine,” Dennis insists. There’s colour returning to his face again - too fast, actually. His cheeks have gone a ruddy shade of pink. “It’s - look, it’s one more dinner. We get through that, we make a good impression, boom. Fifty grand. Done.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Dee says. “Are you done with the phone?”

Dennis scowls at her.

“Dee, don’t be a vulture.”

“So that’s a yes.” Dee snatches the receiver, her fingers curling around it tightly like she thinks someone’s gonna try to take it back. “Charlie, where’s Frank? I need him to read the script.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dennis mutters. Mac huffs out a laugh. Dennis glances at him - rolls his eyes, like he’s saying, _can you believe it?_ Mac shakes his head. _I know._

Dennis smiles. Not one of his fake grins from last night, or the kind of automatic smile that follows a laugh - a real one. Mac’s heart does something very strange; lurching up and then down, like it’s caught in a windstorm.

He clears his throat, putting down his untouched beer and making a beeline for the back door. Nobody bothers him as he goes. His pulse is already slowing as he settles into his usual spot out in the alley: far enough from the bar that he has privacy, far enough from the road that he can hear himself think, and far enough from the dumpster that he can breathe.

Katiya had moved to New York two weeks after the dance; some teaching job at a ballet company, apparently. She’d left him a number that Mac hasn’t called. It just sits untouched in his contacts, and every so often the urge to hear her talk rises up like a muscle cramp, except twice as inconvenient. Why would she care about how his day’s going? What could he possibly say that’s more interesting than New York? There has to be a way to talk to someone you miss without sounding desperate, but whatever it is, Mac hasn’t figured it out yet.

He chews on his bottom lip. His thumb hovers over the call button, never quite pressing down.

“Mac,” Dennis says.

It’s like an electric jolt to the spine: like that time Dennis jammed a screwdriver into the fuse box. He nearly drops his phone.

“Jesus, dude,” Mac breathes. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Dennis looks at the phone, then back at Mac, and apparently decides not to ask. Thank God.

“Look,” he says. His voice is oddly stiff. “We can’t go to this dinner thing in the same clothes. Plus that blazer barely fits you, now you’re all -”

Dennis clears his throat. He gestures at Mac’s torso, like that explains anything. Mac’s mind is blank for a split second longer - right up until the realisation hits him all at once, and then his whole body spirals into overdrive.

“No, look - just get me whatever, bro, it’s not a big deal -”

“Well it is a big deal, because I don’t know your measurements,” Dennis says sharply. “Do you want to win this thing or not?”

Something like this would go against his plan to get over Dennis pretty spectacularly. But pissing Dennis off, Mac decides, chewing his bottom lip, is also not conducive to getting over him. Or being friends with him, which is the real end goal here.

Shit.

“Can we make it quick?”

“You want to rush it?” Dennis sounds incredulous. “You want to rush - Mac, the outfits are half the goddamn scheme! That’s how we lure these people in!”

He’s not yelling-yelling - not yet, anyway - but there’s a tenseness to his hand gestures that puts Mac on alert. Dennis is weirdly set on this, apparently.

“Okay,” Mac says, lifting his hands. “Okay. Fine. Let’s go.”

Dennis swallows and looks away - not abashed, exactly. Something close to it.

“All right,” he says. “Good.”  
  


* * *

 

Settling into being Dennis’ friend is actually pretty easy. Sort-of. It helps that Mac has a few decades worth of practise to fall back on.

They end up at the kind of annoying boutique store he’s always too intimidated to go into. Dennis swiftly stakes out a territory in the formal-wear section, glaring at any staff or passersby who get too close, and he must have done some planning in advance because he picks Mac’s outfit with borderline terrifying efficiency: new pants, new button-down, and a soft navy sweater that Mac keeps stroking his fingers over as he holds it in his arms. Dennis only falters, in fact, when it comes to picking his own shirt. He falters for five long, silent minutes.

Mac sighs. He fidgets from foot to foot.

“Dennis -”

“Shut up,” Dennis snaps, not looking up from the clothes rack. “I’m thinking.”

He’s got two singled out - one yellow, one blue. He’d look good in either, but apparently he hasn’t realised that yet. Whether he ever will is still debatable.

“Yellow washes me out,” Dennis mutters to himself.

“You look good in it,” Mac says absently, not looking up from his phone. Charlie’s sent him a text - a sheep emoji, a green heart, and another sheep - that he can’t quite figure it out. “Hey, what’s it mean when Charlie uses animals?”

He’s met with silence. Typical, Mac thinks. Dennis is too focused on the shirt thing to listen to Mac’s far more interesting, more important problem.

“Dude. Dennis. Help me out here.”

He glances up from his phone - only to find that Dennis is already staring back at him, a frozen, unsettled expression on his face. He’s looking at Mac like he’s waiting for a punchline.

Mac raises his eyebrows.

“What?” 

“Nothing,” Dennis says. He sounds hoarse.

“Okay,” Mac says, slowly. “Are you -”

“I’m getting the blue one,” Dennis says. 

“Oh.” Mac rocks back on his heels. “Cool. Can we go?”

“Absolutely not.” Dennis scowls at him, looking marginally more like himself. “We haven’t even chosen ties yet.”

Mac rolls his eyes. He drags his feet as he trails behind Dennis, still squinting down at Charlie’s text while Dennis pays for their clothes - loading Mac’s arms with bags in the process - before leading him over to the other side of the store.

The ties, in Mac’s opinion, is when things start to get complicated.

“And then you fold it down,” Dennis is saying. “And pull it tight. Got it?”

They’re stood face to face in the lone fitting room - why fancy places always skimp on fitting rooms, Mac does not know. Dennis has been fussing with the neckline of his shirt for at least five minutes while Mac stares down at the floorboards, praying to God and anyone else who’s listening that his neck isn’t as sweaty as it feels.

“Mac,” Dennis says, snapping his fingers. “Listen to me.”

“I am listening, bro,” Mac insists. He licks his lips. Pushing down the urge to fidget takes a lot of effort, but he manages it.

Dennis raises his eyebrows. His hands are back at Mac’s neck - flitting around his throat until the tie is unfolded again.

“Well, if you were listening,” he says. “You’ll know what to do.”

Mac swallows.

“I know what to do.”

“Do you?” Dennis says, more of a drawl than a question, and that’s it. That is _it_.

Mac huffs. He pointedly yanks the tie’s thick side over the front of his collar, then under, then around. It feels too tight but he perseveres, folding it over itself and trying to smooth down the bumps -

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Dennis mutters, batting his hands away. “Wasn’t there a tie in our uniform? At St Joes?”

“Charlie always did it for me,” Mac says. “Before… before class.”

Dennis’ knuckles are right there, brushing his throat as he talks. Has he noticed? Or is this just one of those things that only Mac’s subconscious is attuned to: the position of Dennis’ body in a room, how close it is to his, and how close it could be. Mac can’t stop looking down at his wrists. They move in quick, deft motions as he loosens the knot around Mac’s neck, the tendons underneath occasionally dipping close to the surface.

“That’s ridiculous.”

Mac glances up, expecting to catch him smirking - but Dennis isn’t looking at him. His eyes are downcast, still fixed on the tie around Mac’s throat. His brow is faintly furrowed. Mac’s fingers twitch at his sides.

“Shut up.”

Dennis snorts. It’s not an attractive sound in the slightest, and it makes something warm uncurl low in Mac’s stomach anyway.

“Kids can do this,” he points out. “ _Charlie_ can do it. Come on.”

“Well maybe if you explained it better, I’d get it,” Mac retorts, which was the wrong thing to say entirely, because it makes Dennis cluck his tongue at him; it makes Dennis grab his hands -

“Focus,” Dennis says, firmly. “And follow my lead. Okay?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. To be fair, Mac’s not sure he could’ve given him one: it feels like he’s swallowed his tongue, and like his tongue was on fire at the time. The whole world is covered in static electricity.

“Over,” Dennis murmurs, pushing Mac’s fingers with his own until they move. “Under. Then around. That’s better.”

His touch is steady and slow. Every time he readjusts his grip it’s like a flurry of small, dizzying electric shocks. He’s still talking, using the same quiet voice as before. Mac exhales, praying for focus and knowing there’s no way in hell it’s gonna come.

“There,” Dennis says, sounding satisfied. “Now you look passable.”

Irritation sparks up in Mac’s chest. He clings to it like a lifeline.

“Passable,” he repeats. Dennis has the audacity to shrug.

“Yeah. Mostly.”

“You are so full of shit,” Mac tells him bluntly, but his anger fades into nothing when he makes the mistake of looking at Dennis face-on. He’s not even doing anything, is the worst part, just checking his watch - even so, Mac can’t look away from the line of his jaw. He has the tiniest scar just under his chin, a relic from when Dee once aimed a frisbee wrong on purpose. Mac has a sudden, inexplicable urge to brush his fingers over it.

“You wanna take them for a test run?”

Mac freezes. He blinks, trying to force that statement into making sense. 

“The outfits,” Dennis clarifies. He reaches out and tugs lightly on Mac’s tie. “C’mon, it’ll be fun. We can catch lunch somewhere, talk strategy for this dinner thing -”

“I can’t.”

It comes out way too loud. Mac coughs, stepping back. He tries again. 

“I mean - I've got... I skipped working out yesterday. I should -”

“Right,” Dennis says, evenly.

When he really fucks up - really, truly fucks up - Mac can always feel it. It’s a telltale coldness in his gut that ends up thrumming through his whole body.

“Dennis,” he starts. Dennis ignores him. He picks up the bags at his feet and walks out the fitting room before Mac even has time to move - he tugs at the tie, pulling it off and dropping it on the floor as he chases after Dennis’ retreating back, catching up with him just as he’s heading out onto the street.

“Dennis?” Mac calls out. Dennis doesn’t turn. He keeps heading towards the Range Rover. Mac watches the driver’s side door slam open, then shut. A second or so later the car pulls off the curb unsteadily, lurching forwards, and the last of the warmth in Mac’s chest goes with it.

“Yikes,” Dee says.

Mac briefly wonders if her voice was some sort of weird, stress induced hallucination - but sure enough, Dee’s stood there behind him when he whirls around. Her expression is caught somewhere between surprise and exasperation. What is it with being a Reynolds and sneaking up on people? Is it a twin thing? It must be a twin thing.

“You are both so bad at this,” Dee remarks. “It’s kind of sad.”

“Were you following us? ‘Cause that is pathetic, Dee.”

“I cannot stress this enough,” Dee says, rubbing her temples. “I literally - I cannot stress to you, how much I do not care about you and my brother and your weird… whatever it is. That you’re doing.”

“Then why are you here?”

Dee’s cocky posture shrivels. It’s pretty vindicating to watch.

“I - you know. I was around.”

Mac raises an eyebrow.

“Fine,” Dee hisses. “Whatever, I ditched on a date. Are you happy?”

“Another one?”

“Yes.” Her teeth are clearly gritted. “Another one.” 

“Yikes,” Mac says.

It earns him a sharp smack on the arm that he definitely doesn’t deserve. Dee gets halfway through a word when her mouth slams shut. She freezes, her eyes on something just over Mac’s shoulder.

“Oh, shit,” she says.

Mac glances behind him. There’s a woman stalking her way down the sidewalk, her short black hair skimming her pale shoulders as she walks. She looks furious. She’s glaring right at Dee.

“Jesus,” Mac says. “The hell did you say to her?”

“It’s not what I said,” Dee tells him, sounding distracted. “So much as the, uh. The mimosas. That I did not pay for. Listen, I will give you five bucks to get lunch with me right now, no questions asked.”

“Five bucks?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Dee snaps, pulling him forward by his shirt hem. “Five bucks, now can we just -”

“You are so cheap, Dee -“

“Ten!” Dee sounds half-deranged. “Fine, ten bucks, how about that?”

Mac frowns.

“I guess.”

“Great,” Dee hisses. “Thank you, can we please go somewhere before that bitch tries to stab me? Can we do that? Is that okay with you?”

This is karma, Mac realises. This is heavenly karma for the dine and dash. There’s no getting out of it. Face your sins, and all that shit.

He sighs.

Somewhere ends up being a café tucked away on the street corner. Dee drags them right to the back and looks both ways before sitting down at a two-seater near the window.

“This is good,” she says, running a hand through her hair. “Okay. This is good. Fuck, that was close.”

“Can I get a milkshake?” Mac asks. If Dee’s paying, he might as well get his money’s worth.

Dee frowns at him.

“Dennis is right,” she says. “You do have shitty taste in drinks. Fine, whatever, just keep sitting there and blocking the view.”

It takes a second to sink in - but once it does, Mac drops the menu in his hands and stares at Dee instead, wide eyed.

“He talks about me?”

“Sometimes,” Dee says, flicking through her phone. It’s the flattest monotone Mac’s ever heard.

“What does he say?”

“I'm not telling you. Stop asking.”

The sharpness stings. Mac slouches in his seat, picking at a loose thread on his jeans.

“So you bailed again, huh?”

“Shut up,” Dee snaps, looking up from her phone. “You don’t even -”

“I told you! I know this chick, she’s hot, she’s a dancer -”

“And she’s from New Jersey,” Dee finishes, rubbing her temples. “Yeah. Stop trying to set me up with random women just because they’re gay, it’s getting old. I'm doing fine on my own.”

Mac frowns.

“How does bailing on every date count as fine?”

“Because I -”

Dee cuts off into silence as their drinks arrive.

“Because,” she continues in a whisper, once the waitress has been and gone, “what I _meant_ , asshole, is that I don’t… think I want someone. Yet.”

Mac pauses, the milkshake straw halfway to his mouth.

“Don’t,” Dee warns. “Don’t make it weird.”

“No, I get it,” Mac says. “Seriously.”

Dee’s shoulders sag. She avoids his eyes, focusing on stirring her coffee instead.

“Well,” she mutters. “Good.”

Mac had tried it, the first few months after Dennis left. There was Cedric, who was French, flexible, and had blue eyes that looked too familiar in the right light; Simon, with his three big dogs that Mac had liked and curly brown hair that he hadn’t; Adam, Pablo and Max - all of them perfect on paper and all of them flawed in tiny, painful ways that he could barely place. He’d just been able to feel it.

“They all remind me of her,” Dee says. Her nails tap aimlessly on her mug. “And then… y’know. None of them _are_ her.”

Mac huffs out a laugh. He scrubs a hand over his eyes.

“Has she...”

Dee shakes her head, just once.

“Not since Dennis,” she says. “No.”

A momentary viciousness flickers awake in Mac like a fire being kindled. It’s not so easy being on this side of things; when you’re the one doing the waiting, when you’re the one everyone knows has been left behind, tossed aside - Cindy hasn’t called in three months? Dennis didn’t call for a _year_. Over a year. And Dee certainly had shit to say about the way Mac handled it.

He sips his milkshake quickly, swallowing too fast - the icy sugar rush makes him lightheaded and stings his throat, but it works. When he breathes out the anger slinks out of him, too.

“Gotta say I’m surprised, by the way,” Dee says. “Didn’t think you’d pull it off. The dinner thing.”

Mac swallows.

“Yeah, well. We - he was -”

“Spare me the details,” Dee says, waving a hand in his direction. “I just didn’t think you could survive that long together in the same room.”

 _Me neither,_ Mac thinks, but doesn’t say. It’s safer not to give Dee too much ammunition.

That said.

“Dee.”

“What?”

Mac meets her eyes. Dee’s expression shifts.

“Oh, for - look, I told you, I don't want to talk about -”

“Does Dennis hate me?”

It all comes out in an uneven, breathless rush. Mac can’t look at her so he keeps his eyes on the tabletop instead, shredding sugar packets between his fingers.

“No,” Dee says, eventually.

“You don’t sound -”

“Oh my god!” Dee snaps. “Look, I swear - I _swear_. Dennis does not hate you. God, you’re as stupid as each other.”

“I’m not stupid,” Mac protests.

“You are very stupid,” Dee says. Her phone starts buzzing on the table and she fumbles for it, swearing under her breath.

“Is that him? Mac says - something is soaring up in his throat, expanding there - Dee flicks him on the arm, rolling her eyes.

“It’s the dog people,” she hisses. “Shut _up_.”

The hope in Mac’s throat crumples to nothing.

“I don’t want to do the dog thing,” he insists, shredding another sugar packet. “I told you already, I don’t need deputies.”

Dee is ignoring him now in favour of listening to whoever’s on the line - which is bullshit, because Mac is way more interesting to talk to. She flicks him on the arm again, harder this time. Mac knows a dismissal when he feels one.

“Yeah, alright,” he mutters, hauling himself out of his chair. “Don’t be such a bitch about it.”

Dee waves her hands at him, shooing him away. Mac does as bid, albeit reluctantly, walking back out the door and into the street.

He leans back against the cafe’s front wall. The streets are quieter now; the lunchtime rush must be over. Mac kind of wishes it wasn’t, because it gives his thoughts more space to spread out.

Dee wouldn’t lie to him. She doesn’t care enough to try. And it doesn’t really seem like Dennis hates him, anyway - Mac already knows how that feels. This isn’t it. Which means it’s something else.

His mind wanders back to the night before. The way Dennis had smiled at him; taken food off his plate without hesitation, their ankles knocking together under the table. Dennis stood in front of him in the fitting room, slipping into Mac’s space like he wanted to be there. Dennis’ fingers guiding his.

It’s worth a try, right? All those things put together must mean something.

His phone is out his pocket before he has time to think it through - his fingers scrolling through to Dennis’ name. He picks up after two rings.

“What’s -”

“Do you want to get dinner with me,” Mac says. It comes out in a rush, and not quite like a question.

There’s a long pause. Dennis’ exhale crackles into static.

“Tonight?”

“Tonight,” Mac repeats. “I, um. I was thinking about what you said, about the outfits, and I thought -”

“No.”

Something in Mac’s chest goes still.

“Oh,” he says.

“Is that it?”

“What?”

“Is that it?” Dennis’ voice is short. “Is that all you wanted to say?”

“I… yeah, dude,” Mac says. “I guess.”

“Right,” Dennis says. And then, par for fucking course, he hangs up.  
  


* * *

 

  
The rest of Mac’s evening goes like this: he heads to the bar on Locust Street, the one with dimmed lights and generous whiskey sours. He stays slumped on a stool by the counter until he’s three drinks in and the sky’s turned dark. He watches the door and the people who walk through it until his eyes catch on a plaid shirt and hold there, rising up to meet the owner’s eyes - he’s tall, Mac notes, a little taller than him, but thinner too. His eyes could pass for blue in this light.

“Hi,” plaid shirt-blue eyes says. Mac grins at him, slow and lazy. He downs the rest of his drink.

The music is too loud. The music is too loud and it doesn’t matter: there are hands trailing under his shirt and a parted mouth on his. Between the music and the steady heat of being kissed, there’s no space left for his thoughts at all.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” 

It sounds breathy - bitten off at the end, because Mac ducks his head and starts to kiss down of the other guy’s throat. He tastes of sweat and faintly sour underneath. It’s from the cologne he’s wearing, Mac’s pretty sure.

“Not really,” Mac murmurs. He leans up and presses their mouths together again, winding his arms around the stranger’s neck and trying to get closer. He wants to bite down on the bottom lip his tongue is tracing the shape of, but the kiss ends prematurely - Mac is about to protest, but he ends up making a low, breathless sound instead as the guy presses his mouth to Mac’s neck, soothing the initial bite with the heat of his tongue.

“Do you want to come outside?” the stranger says. There are warm fingers sliding up and down Mac’s arm now. His tone makes the whole thing undeniably evident: it’s like someone’s put the conversation under a blacklight.

Mac’s skin starts to itch. The fingers ghosting on his arm aren't helping - he shrugs them off, not really thinking about it. Plaid shirt-blue eyes takes a step back.

“You could just say no,” he says, sounding irritated. It pushes Mac's annoyance over the edge.

“Fine,” he snaps, “then no. Get out my way.”

He hears the disbelieving scoff that gets thrown at his back but doesn’t turn to look, just shoulders his way towards the door. His heart is going too fast, his lips still tingling faintly.

Nights like this are always a risk. They don’t fit the space he’s trying to fill. Sometimes they come close, but mostly they just miss the mark entirely - he keeps trying anyway, since it’s not like he has anything better to do. He doesn’t even know what the real solution looks like. He catches glimpses of what he really wants in dreams, sometimes, but knowing what he wants isn’t helpful. He’d rather know how to fix it.

His uber decides to take the long route home. Mac's too tired to argue. He dozes off against the window, waking up when the car jolts over a pothole, and by the time he’s stumbling into the unforgiving light of the apartment building, he’s starting to regret a couple of the whiskey sours. Maybe all of them.

Sleep, he decides muzzily. He needs sleep. And to wash the weird cottony feeling out his mouth. He stumbles into the living room, ready to collapse - and then stops dead, stomach in freefall, because Dennis is sat on the couch.

Of course he’s here. Mac should’ve planned for this. He should’ve just gone to Charlie’s. 

“Hi,” he says, cautiously.

“Shut the door,” Dennis says. Mac swallows.

“Sorry.”

Dennis’ eyes are fixed on his neck, for some reason. Mac reaches up to touch the place Dennis is staring at and finds tenderness there under his fingers; the dull ache of a bruise.

“Had fun tonight?”

Mac’s cheeks start to flush. A bolt of adrenaline floods into his fists.

“Yeah, actually,” he says, before he can stop himself. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” Dennis spits out.

 _So why did you ask, then?_ Mac wants to say. He doesn’t. He shuts his eyes instead, breathing out slow as he counts down from ten, and then heads over to his room. Whatever Dennis’ issue is, he’ll deal with it in the morning.

“I don’t give a shit. I just think it’s irresponsible.”

Mac goes still.

“What?”

“Yeah.” Dennis’ voice is getting louder now; like he’s building up to something. “We’re in the middle of something important here, this whole thing relies on people thinking we’re a couple -”

“They think Honey and Vinegar are a couple,” Mac snaps. “You don’t get to control all my spare time, Dennis -”

“I’m not trying to!”

“Yes, you are!” Mac doesn’t realise he’s shouting until he’s stalked halfway across the room. Dennis is on his feet now too: his mouth is a thin, furious line, every inch of him carved out of stone. “And you _know_ you are, dude. Don’t try and bullshit me.”

“All I said,” Dennis repeats, teeth gritted, “is that it’s irresponsible. Which it is, because there’s fifty grand on the line. I want - I need us to be on the same page here.”

He says the last part quieter than the rest. It’s enough to make Mac pause.

Understanding each other, for them, is a mythical concept. It’s one Mac’s spent years chasing - almost found, a few times - but they inevitably end up pulled apart in the end. Failure is in the details. Someone always ruins the moment. Someone always leaves.

“Okay,” Mac says. “So… explain it to me. Because we’re not.”

A muscle jumps in Dennis’ jaw. For a second, Mac thinks he’s going to look away; Dennis holds his ground instead, rolling his shoulders and facing Mac head on.

“I don’t think we should hook up with other people until the scheme is over,” he says. His voice is curt and steady. “It’s a liability. We need our story to be airtight.”

Next Friday, then. That’s not too long. Inconvenient, but doable.

Mac nods.

“Fine.”

“Good,” Dennis says, quietly.

He steps back. They were stood a lot closer than Mac realised, but it doesn’t matter - Dennis is gone, the door to his room clicking shut.

Going through the motions is a struggle. Somehow, he survives anyway: showers quickly, brushes his teeth, then ducks his head so he can take a drink from the faucet. The bruise on his neck is pulsing faintly, sensitive to the touch. Mac’s fingers keep straying to it of their own accord. He remembers the guy at the bar with his soft curls and steady hands. He remembers the way Dennis had looked at him when he got home.

There should be a word for when you can tell you’re out of your depth. Maybe there already is and he just doesn’t know it - the same way he doesn’t know anything else, apparently. Every decision he’s made recently was easy at the time and a mistake in hindsight. He’s lost, and he’s tired, and nothing makes sense; he wants to hear Dennis’ door creak open. He wants Dennis to knock on the doorframe. _I can’t sleep. Can you?_ The kind of unspoken, half-apology the two of them used to be so good at.

Mac rolls onto his side, the sheets twisting restlessly around his legs. The apartment stays quiet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long ♡  
> [tumblr](http://macfoundhispride.tumblr.com)


End file.
